Biden gets a sweet treat, takes a selfie in Portsmouth

PORTSMOUTH — A 17-vehicle motorcade brought Vice President Joe Biden to the heart of the city Wednesday afternoon when he took a selfie on Ceres Street, ate a lobster roll at Old Ferry Landing, tipped an ice cream scooper $11.70 and made 8-year-old Isaac Domsky's day.

PORTSMOUTH — A 17-vehicle motorcade brought Vice President Joe Biden to the heart of the city Wednesday afternoon when he took a selfie on Ceres Street, ate a lobster roll at Old Ferry Landing, tipped an ice cream scooper $11.70 and made 8-year-old Isaac Domsky's day.

The vice president's visit was preceded by a helicopter flying low circles over the city, while a small army of plain-clothes officers gathered in the area. Marie LaSalle, who is visiting Portsmouth with her husband Byron, said she started noticing men who looked like they were undercover cops, saw unmarked cruisers and suspected someone of importance was due to arrive. Because of that, she said, they stuck around.

“I put the clues together,” she said. “That's what happens when you read a lot of mystery books.”

When the Georgia native heard it was Biden visiting, she said, “I'm so excited.”

“I've always liked Biden and I think he's a good guy,” she said. “And it's not easy to like Biden if you live in Georgia because everyone there is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.”

When Biden arrived at about 1 p.m., he walked up Ceres Street to a small crowd that had gathered, shook some hands and took a selfie with a well-wisher's cellphone. Followed by a team of security officers, he walked back to Old Ferry Landing, where Marie and Byron LaSalle were seated on a granite bench out front.

“I told him, 'Thank you for being such a good Catholic and you're doing it right,'” Marie said. “He gave me a kiss.”

A heating and ventilation contractor installing a heater in the deck at the adjacent Poco's restaurant was less enthusiastic, saying, “He's not my vice president. But I'd shake his hand,” he added.

A driver trying to make a delivery of paper goods to a nearby business, who also asked not to be named, complained about the street being closed and said, “Joe Biden is interrupting the working force of New Hampshire.”

But it was all smiles inside Old Ferry Landing, said owner Jack Blalock, who said he was tipped off about the vice presidential visit just a half hour before Biden arrived.

“His arrival was imminent when I found out,” he said.

According to Blalock, Secret Service agents showed up, looked around and asked all kinds of questions, including about where the water line was on the riverfront restaurant.

Blalock said he called his wife Pam and their son Rich to get to the restaurant where Biden and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter shared a lobster roll and seafood ravioli. Once the Secret Service agents heard there were lobster rolls, Blalock said, “the whole entourage” ordered some.

“It was all very exciting and very last minute,” he said. “There were a lot of happy faces. Just a lot of fun.”

Rich Blalock said he reminded Biden that when he visited the area in the late 1980s, when Rich was about 5-years-old, Biden pretended to pull a quarter out of his ear.

“After I mentioned it, he did it again with a mint,” he said.

After lunch, Biden walked to Annabelle's ice cream shop down the street where he ordered a vanilla chocolate chip scoop in a waffle cone, said Rye native and University of New Hampshire student Rachel Kammerer, who made the vice presidential cone. Shea-Porter ordered a mango sorbet, Biden reached in his pocket for a $20 bill and told Kammerer to “keep the rest.”

“For college,” is what Kammerer said she'll do with the tip.

She said she saw the motorcade drive past Annabelle's shortly before a couple of men went into the ice cream shop, identified themselves as Secret Service agents and said they had to look around “to make sure the place is secure.”

Kammerer said the inquiry made her laugh, then she was a bit nervous when she heard there might be “someone special” stopping in. “I think I was more nervous leading up to it,” she said. “Then after I served him, I asked if we could take a picture together.”

Biden agreed, she said.

Cone in hand, with some of his ice cream melting onto his fingers, Biden then walked back up Ceres Street, through a small crowd and told young Isaac Domsky he'd been “waiting to meet you all day.” Domsky had been asking his grandmother, Laiya Domsky, for an ice cream cone the entire hour they waited on a sidewalk for Biden to emerge from lunch. But once the vice president shook his hand, the young Domsky forgot about ice cream.

“I loved it,” he said. “He was kind to me and he was kind to my grandmother.”

Laiya Domsky took the opportunity to tell the vice president that custodial grandparents need some assistance.

“He said he's working on our issue,” she said after the sidewalk meeting with the vice president.

Nearby, George Pevear of Somersworth said he stopped in the city for lunch and was struck by the size of Biden's motorcade and the closure of Ceres Street.

“That's a big taxpayer expense,” he said. “We've got Maine and New Hampshire State Police, the Portsmouth police, the feds, the Coast Guard and the helicopter in the air. The guy's eating lunch, while all these restaurants are taking a hit because nobody can go down there.”

After countless phone photos taken by onlookers and Biden climbed back into one of several black sports utility vehicles in the motorcade, the vice presidential entourage left Market Square to the sound of sirens.

“He's very sweet,” Lewis Palosky, owner of Annabelle's, said about his meeting with Biden. “It's pretty neat.”